Page 87 of A Secret Scottish Escape

Mask tilted his head to one side as he considered this. “Someone has been asking about me in the village?”

Good grief, he was so frustrating! “All right. If you want to be an awkward sod, that’s fine by me.” I pulled the Post-it from my back pocket and unfolded it. “OK, so the name I have for this woman is Belle Raven.”

“What did you say?” His deep brown eyes smouldered from under the shadows of his hood.

“Belle Raven,” I repeated in a much smaller voice.

“Is this some sort of joke?”

I thrust the note towards him but he didn’t take it. “That’s the name she gave at the B&B she’s staying at.”

He took two long strides so that he was now looming over me. Confusion and alarm radiated off him. “I think you should leave.”

I opened my mouth but he cut me off. “I said I want you to leave. Now!”

“I was just trying to help you. This woman has been saying lots of cruel things. Was she the one who was trying to cause trouble for you the other evening?”

He didn’t answer. He just seethed under his hood.

“You might not be familiar with a thing called community spirit but that’s what we share around here.”

“I think that’s a euphemism for being nosey.”

I almost laughed at the irony of it. He sounded like Mac, saying that. I challenged his hot, dark gaze. “How to win friends and influence people. You’ve really got this nailed, haven’t you?”

I didn’t need him to be grateful, but a shred of civility would be nice.

Mask’s square jaw jutted out from under his hood. “I didn’t move to the middle of nowhere to have tea parties.”

“I gathered that much.”

“I want you to leave. Now!”

My face burned.

I screwed up the note in my hand and hurled it at his trainer-clad feet. “Maybe she’s right about you.”

Mask jerked his hood further down over his features as I slammed my car into reverse and drove away.

What I didn’t see was him drop down to snatch up the Post-it note and close his eyes in anger and frustration.

Chapter Forty-One

I stomped over the grass and back up the porch steps to The Conch Club.

Molly had gone but my dad was still wearing a flustered glow. He was checking one of the window locks and spun round to watch me.

I clod-hopped over the wood floor and past the furniture, still swathed in its protective plastic sheeting.

Dad’s brows knitted together when I launched into a verbal tirade about Mask and said that I’d decided I wouldn’t be featuring his music on opening night.

Dad’s mouth twitched. “You can’t do that, darling. It looks like you’ve already lost Battalion and you’ve already mentioned your exclusive play of his new material in your advertising.”

I rubbed my bare arms and made a groaning sound. Dad had a good point. I’d left several voicemail messages for Ed, trying to persuade him to change his mind and re-join the group, even if it was only for one night at The Conch Club. He hadn’t called me back.

If I dropped Mask’s music now as well, it would do my reputation no good at all.

As if reading my mind, Dad warned me of the consequences. “If you pull him now, punters may think you’re untrustworthy. Is that really what you want when you’re trying to launch a new business?”